Spotify shows offline, Android smarts

Spotify, the major labels' big bet for stopping P2P wickedness, has demonstrated an offline version of the service for the first time. It's running on a Google Android mobile phone at Google's I/O developer event. And as you can see, it provides fast and slick access to the music, just like the desktop client. The most interesting aspect is not that it's mobile - that's no surprise - it's the "offline mode" that's new. Playlists can be cached, which turns your phone into an MP3 player with Spotify as the default music client.

Playlists are instantly synced across desktop and mobile clients, and can be manipulated on either.

Spotify is working on several mobile versions - at The Great Escape in Brighton a fortnight ago, founder Daniel Ek confirmed an iPhone/iPod Touch version, but said he hoped Apple wouldn't block the app for competing with Apple's own iTunes store. His hopes were based on the precedent that Apple had not blocked Pandora or Last.fm applications.

But as we can see, Spotify isn't just a streaming service any more. The offline mode takes it right into iTunes territory. ®